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Saturday, January 4, 2014

Giordano's and my love for stuffed pizza

I love pizza. I’d
say this must be genetic except that I don’t know any German restaurants that
offer pizza and for that matter I never knew an Amish restaurant to offer one
either. It must be one of those learned
behaviors but however it happened, the fact still remains that I love
pizza. Luckily I married well and my
wife loves pizza too, haha!

I grew up eating thin crust pizza until Pizza Hut opened its
doors and introduced us to pan pizza. I
remember thinking that it was so good! However,
it wasn’t until I went off to college in Fort Wayne, Indiana that I met stuffed
pizza. On a day trip to Chicago from
Fort Wayne (a 3 ½ hour trip one way); I met my pizza love for the first
time. After that, we made many trips to
Chicago for stuffed pizza just to drive back to Fort Wayne again that
night. Only once did we all nod off and
almost crash, but we lived to tell the tale.

The stuffed pizza pie for me was Giordano’s
Pizzeria. It just tasted better than the
others and that’s how a long term relationship between a man and his stuffed
pizza began. Years later when I would
fly into Chicago for the National Restaurant Association Show, the first place
I hit after dropping my bags off at the hotel was Giordano’s. There is something special about a glass of
Chianti and my stuffed pizza at Giordano’s that make my eyes sparkle!

The stuffed pizza is a serious double crusted pie full of
cheese and toppings in the first layer with sauce covering the top. I know some people are weirded out that they
can’t see the cheese, but a little patience will reveal all that you need. The crust is firm enough to hold the heavy
pizza pie together yet has a flavor that only adds to the total deliciousness
of the pizza. The sauce is great with
oregano showing through and again collaborating with the rest of the
ingredients to make it all happen. And
of course the cheese, thick and gooey, tasty and divine – there just ain’t
nothing like it folks!

Part of the reason must be because this is an old family
recipe that is over 200 years old according to Giordano’s. The Story (from the Giordano’s website):

Its creation began in a small northern Italian town near
Torino. Mama Giordano was famous around
town for her exquisite cooking. Of all
her renowned dishes, her most beloved meal was her “Italian Easter Pie”. Mama Giordano would serve this
double-crusted, ricotta cheese stuffed masterpiece every year for Easter. This pizza pie became a sacred tradition in
the Giordano family and a legend in the town of Torino.

Years later, original owners and Italian immigrants Efren
and Joseph Boglio moved to Chicago to start their own pizza business. Discourage by the lack of authentic pizza
available in the city, the brothers introduced their Mama’s recipe for stuffed
pizza. In 1974, on Chicago’s historic
south side, Efren and Joseph opened the first Giordano’s.

Over the next 35 years, hundreds of critics announced
Giordano’s as the city’s “best” stuffed pizza!
The rest is history you can still taste today …

I don’t know how much of that story may be true or about
the hundreds of critics mentioned but I do know that Giordano’s is my favorite stuffed
pizza. If you can’t make it to a Giordano’s
location, order it online (it’s still good, but not as good as fresh out of the
oven).